Talk about inflation

The price of everything is going up up up.  I mean, look how much it costs the Orleans Parish Democratic Executive Committee to buy just one city court clerkship these days. 

Lisa Ray Diggs is, without question, the establishment candidate for this position. She’s the chair of the Orleans Parish Democratic Executive Committee and cites endorsements by Mayor LaToya Cantrell, every member of the City Council, U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, and numerous other local politicians, including Lombard, who she’s vying to replace.

She’s also raised fairly substantial funds for the election, according to campaign finance records, including more than $8,600 in contributions and a $20,000 interest-free loan she made to her own campaign. Those funds, her filings say, have helped pay for a $4,711.77 “billboard,” more than $6,000 worth of “signs & stakes,” and thousands of dollars more spent on vague campaign-related costs including “campaign management services” and “campaign consulting services” and “strategic campaign services.” The campaign paid $2,500 to an organization called Grassroots Solutions NOLA just for “campaign finance reporting,” according to those very campaign finance reports. That’s not a service we see many campaigns paying for, especially at that price.

All the candidates in that race look to be running on similar platforms. Although it also looks like they've mostly cribbed from Jordan Bridges's proposal to digitize records so you can make up your mind which candidate is most committed to that idea.  Anyway, City Court handles evictions. It's always helpful to have someone in charge there who actually cares about people who need housing.  Do any of these folks care about that?  Hard to say.

New old names

The Advocate mentions two new City Council candidates in today's political blurbs. The candidates are new to this race but the names are not.

They are Belden “Noonie Man” Batiste, a community activist and Yellow Pocahontas Mardi Gras Indian, and Kenneth Cutno, a community development and housing consultant. They say they will sign up for the District D and Division 1 at-large seats, respectively.

Add a Batiste to a ballot that already includes a Bagneris and a Charbonnet in the mayoral slot and you've got yourself one heck of an #authentic NOLA-branded field.  We should look into selling Brass Passes or something. If anything it further highlights the absence of any Landrieus whatsoever.  Especially strange given that there are millions of those.

Cutno's name is less familiar but he himself has run for office previously. Granted that was more or less what one might consider a vanity campaign against Cedric Richmond last year. Jumping into a citywide At-Large race with little experience or name recognition would seem much the same way.  But that's fine because minor candidates hoping to catch fire are important. Often they are free to focus on policy positions more established figures may find risky but which deserve to be heard.

Cutno is calling for the repeal of a comprehensive set of regulations for short-term rentals that the City Council approved last year, a $17 million investment in affordable housing programs and the removal of the city’s traffic cameras, among other things.

Not that other candidates aren't talking about housing. But few have directly called for a repeal of the STR regs even though it's already clear they will have to be revisited one way or another.  I also believe Michael Bagneris has criticized the traffic cameras. But is he even a major candidate at this point?